Neighborlily is a new concept for a neighborhood-focused Flower, Coffee, and Tea Shop in Nashville. The plan was to convert a historic, existing brick residence in the Germantown neighborhood into Neighborlily’s new home. While this provided a beautiful seed to grow the new business, it came with a handful of design challenges. Even before the design phase began, Comma had to navigate multiple obstacles between disciplines to enable the full design build team to bring the client’s vision full circle. 

 

On the exterior, the main challenge was marrying the client’s biggest need with the largest obstacle, that is, a new outdoor seating area and a redesigned entry to meet code. In order to keep the historic front porch, preserve the existing trees, and not create an eyesore on the front facade, the entry went through multiple iterations until an acceptable solution was found. A large exterior ramp was needed to provide wheelchair entry from the street to the shop floor. The new ramp and deck lead to an elevated step flush with the shop floor. This new entry ties together both the existing porch, now a cozy sitting space under the magnolia, and the more open, social seating provided on the new deck.  

 

The existing single-family home featured interior brick walls, wood paneling, and hardwood floors. While this provided a beautiful foundation to build upon, the masonry walls were a much less flexible medium to make changes to the home’s previous layout. The design team was tasked to fit Neighborlily’s broad vision into the small house including kitchen, cafe, retail space, and a small workshop. Storage for each piece of program was needed, and two bathrooms would need to be maintained all within less than 1,500sf of space. The kitchen drove the floor plan due to the specialized cafe equipment required, but efforts were made to limit the amount of plumbing and mechanical changes due to cost. Accessibility added a greater level of difficulty to make the small house meet current code. The result was a floor plan that is full of beauty without feeling cramped by the many stunning flowers and products on display.